Five Features Left on the BioShock Drawing Board

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Five Features Left on the BioShock Drawing Board


Fans of System Shock 2 [http://www.amazon.com/BioShock-Playstation-3/dp/B001B1W3GG/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1280255365&sr=1-1] should check out "Five Cut Features," a look back at some of the more interesting gameplay elements that came close to being included in Irrational's two biggest hits.

It's not something that most of us think about, but videogame greatness is often achieved almost as much by what developers leave out as what they include. Doom [http://www.idsoftware.com/games/doom/doom-final/] is a great example of that: The original concept included a coherent story, multiple characters, cut scenes and more, whereas the final result was a stripped-down, "pure" FPS experience that became one of the most influential games in history. That refinement process is something that virtually every game goes through and as Irrational reveals in "Five Cut Features," there's usually a good reason for it.

Ever wonder why the guns in System Shock 2 broke down so quickly? (If your answer is "no," then you've obviously never played the game.) That great mystery was one audio log away from being explained and, according to the report, was discussed so often that some members of the development team actually thought it had been included. BioShock, meanwhile, came close to employing an "atmospheric pressure system" that sounds interesting as a concept but would have been an absolute train wreck in execution.

And then there's the infamous BioShock hacking. "Machines that seemed mechanical on the surface would actually have mutated humans operating them behind the scenes - something that players would only come to realize partway through the game," said designer Alexx Kay. "There is a small remnant of this notion in the hacking mini-game; originally, the fiction behind it was that you were increasing the flow of Adam to this addicted, mutated slave, and he was giving you extra benefits in gratitude."

It's a lot of fun to read and also a bit of an insight into the countless decisions that go into the process of taking a game from a rough concept to a finished product. Not everyone will agree with every choice, but some things are quite clearly best left on the drawing board - Nav-Bot, I'm looking at you. Read about all "five cut features" at irrationalgames.com [http://irrationalgames.com/insider/five-cut-features/#more-2726]. (And for the record, I thought the weapon degradation mechanic in System Shock 2 worked just fine.)


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Feb 13, 2008
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Interestingly, System Shock's "Cigarettes are bad for your health" (-1 health for each smoked, permanently) passed through into BioShock's world, where in the realm where it was set cigarettes would have been a bonus to all cool checks.
 

DeadMG

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The five features are four from BioShock, and one from SS2. Most disappointing.
 

Gildan Bladeborn

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Andy Chalk said:
(And for the record, I though the weapon degradation mechanic in System Shock 2 worked just fine.)
You should probably fix that to read "thought". Also I now think you're insane, as the degradation mechanic in System Shock 2 would have only made sense if all the guns were made out of crackers. Or did you forget all the shotguns that work just fine when the bad guy is shooting at you with them, but are mysteriously "jammed" when you go to pick them up? I sure didn't!

The_root_of_all_evil said:
Interestingly, System Shock's "Cigarettes are bad for your health" (-1 health for each smoked, permanently) passed through into BioShock's world, where in the realm where it was set cigarettes would have been a bonus to all cool checks.
There was a slight bonus to your EVE level from smoking them though, wasn't there? More useful at least than the ones in Deus Ex, heh (Coffin' Nails indeed).
 

Chipperz

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It's a shame, really. That "insect ecology" thing sounds really interesting.
 

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Yes, "thought." Thanks for the heads-up.
Gildan Bladeborn said:
Also I now think you're insane, as the degradation mechanic in System Shock 2 would have only made sense if all the guns were made out of crackers. Or did you forget all the shotguns that work just fine when the bad guy is shooting at you with them, but are mysteriously "jammed" when you go to pick them up? I sure didn't!
It's a gameplay mechanic. Sure, it's not realistic, but neither is the idea of recording voice memos when you're supposedly paralyzed with terror about the mutant abomination that's smashing down the door to your room. "OH MY GOD HE'S COMING TO GET MEEEEEEE! Shit, wait, are these batteries any good..."

And while it may have been annoying at times, it's hard to argue that having your pistol break in the middle of a fight didn't add a certain element of excitement to the whole thing.
 

Jared

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Chipperz said:
It's a shame, really. That "insect ecology" thing sounds really interesting.
Yeah. Liked the look of that.

And as for...The SS2 weapon degregation...It has never been good, anywhere, at all! No exceptions! Even with greatness!
 

Trivun

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Dec 13, 2008
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Considering I hope to work in development myself, this is pretty interesting. I myself have come up with decent ideas for my own work that have ended up being left out in the cold. I'm currently working on my own game, with gameplay based on Pong, using Game Maker, and when planning I intended to have later levels become more difficult with the addition of moving blocks. When I came to add this, I found that the sprites I was using were too large and that no matter what I tried, the execution of my plan was much too difficult to actually do. I also tried to add a timer so that levels last three minutes, but it took up too much memory and I had to spend a lot of time coming up with a way of bringing the memory requirements and processing work down.

So I understand how difficult some of the features Irrational wanted to add would have been to develop in their games. It also gives us an insight into why some developers who truly care about their games, like Peter Molyneux at Lionhead, get so excited about all the different features they want to add, and that we never end up seeing in the finished release. It takes a lot of work to make a game, and hopefully gamers will read this and understand that for all their moaning and griping when games aren't every bit what they want, they're getting the result of a labour of love. Hopefully it'll make the next people to complain about HL2: Episode 3 decide to stop and just let Valve get on with it in their own time...
 

DaxStrife

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Nov 29, 2007
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Andy Chalk said:
And while it may have been annoying at times, it's hard to argue that having your pistol break in the middle of a fight didn't add a certain element of excitement to the whole thing.
Gotta agree with this; it was the only way to keep the player from getting too powerful towards the end of the game, too. Mowing down giant Rumblers with an assault rifle full of anti-personnel rounds lacked any kind of intensity if it wasn't for the lingering dread that the gun would jam right as the monster got in your grill. Sure, it created a bad precedent for some games (Silent Hill: Origins [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/20-Silent-Hill-Origins]), but the mechanic of degrading weapons worked in favor of the game's atmosphere.
 

Callate

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I'm sorry, I've got another vote against SS2's weapon degradation system. It's just one more arbitrary thing to make the player waste nanites. It's not "stressful-frightening", it's "stressful-irritating". Boy, did I get tired of being fired on with broken weapons. When the player isn't on a level playing field with one of the most common enemies in the game, the game has a problem.

Actually, I think it's one of the thing that makes Silent Hill 2 work as an experience- even if you can stomp every creature that's trying to kill you, there's still a sense of oppression, still a sense of being trapped. To a very real extent, the game is about things you can't fight, whether it's your own past or the malevolent entity that periodically drags the town of Silent Hill down into something resembling hell. How many "survival horror" games retain their tension if you have an unlimited supply of ammunition?
 

ZippyDSMlee

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Jaredin said:
Chipperz said:
It's a shame, really. That "insect ecology" thing sounds really interesting.
Yeah. Liked the look of that.

And as for...The SS2 weapon degregation...It has never been good, anywhere, at all! No exceptions! Even with greatness!
I think it was neat but did drag the gameplay down,(I tended to play with it off,tho i you have more items and loot having it like it was is not that bad) instead of making it where it fails and you have to fix it have it more like FO3s system only with more misfires the worse the weapon condition gets, only have it so you have disposable repair kits, cannibalization, and simple tools that can not be used up that can fix a weapon by 10 or so % every X amount of time.
Also have it set up where you can easily double its condition under the right set of circumstances then have it so while its condition is above 100% it degrades slower(25% rate) and dose more damage(0.5% damage bonus per every 1% over 100%)

Now the next train of thought is how do we make this into a skill that improves without wasting points to it, well base attributes can help(int/wis/dexterity,ect) and another skill like science or mechanics, streamline it without losing anything.

This is something modern devs have a ahrd time with when you stream line something you tend to start from scratch or throw out so much the resulting design is...pitiful...
 

snow

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I'm glad they decided not to go with the "Robots being controlled by ADAM hungry people in the background"

Because although I don't recall it being explained what that lime green goo is.. (Maybe I missed something?)

It would have left me wanting to extract that green goo for myself if it really was ADAM... Beats dying 6 times to big daddy...
 

ma55ter_fett

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The atmospheric pressure would have been cool if you could increase the pressure so much that enemies would implode, or the opposite where they would burst like ballons of gore.
 

CloggedDonkey

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pretty neat, but I don't think the organic would have worked with bioshock. it's supposed to be the industrial dreams of the 20 and 30, not the many hive from system shock.